Typically a respiratory treatment apparatus can provide a patient with a supply of breathable gas (usually air, with or without supplemental oxygen) at a therapeutic pressure or pressures, at appropriate times during the subject's breathing cycle. Such therapies may include continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), nasal intermittent positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV) and variable positive airway pressure (VPAP), for example. The therapy may be used for treatment of various respiratory conditions including, for example, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (“COPD”), sleep disordered breathing (SDB), obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), etc.
Pressure related settings of a respiratory treatment apparatus can be determined by a clinician by monitoring a patient's respiration during a titration session. For example, the goal of a CPAP titration session is to determine what level of CPAP treatment is needed to abolish a patient's upper-airway irregularities. Throughout such a session, a physician or clinician may manually adjust a CPAP level (pressure) to resolve observed respiratory irregularities. In some devices, a clinician may also manually adjust settings for controlling the triggering and cycling parameters that relate to the detection of patient respiration and used for patient ventilator synchronization.
In some respiratory treatment apparatus, automated control may be implemented so that the device may even adjust treatment pressure settings during treatment in response to detected sleep disordered breathing events during treatment. For example, upon detecting an occurrence of an obstructive apnea, the device might increase the CPAP pressure by some increment until the occurrence is no longer detected. Such a device may be considered an auto-titration CPAP device.
Nevertheless, even in such devices, initial pressure treatment settings are typically set by a clinician or physician. There may be a need to improve the automated systems of respiratory treatment apparatus so as to promote efficient and effective set up of the control parameters used to control pressure therapy.